Collecting data- where and how
Collection of data will proceed with slight variations for each country and potentially for taxonomic groups and data sources within each country.
The goal for indicator 1 is to extract a current census size (and/or, if available, effective size) for each population for each species. It is also important to record associated data such as year, reliability/ uncertainty, population names or geographic information, reference information, and other information of the species. This is why we have created a Kobo form and Kobo guide.
Note: Nc represents the number of adults present in the population. For birds, estimates of numbers of breeding pairs (if available) can be used, which represents 0.5*Nc. Thus, multiply the number of breeding pairs by 2 to get the Nc.
The goal for indicator 2 is to extract a count of the number of populations existing today, and which existed at a historic time point. To allow maximum use of each country’s data and flexibility, we do not define ‘historic time point’ specifically but we offer guidance below.
Collection of data may be very straightforward or fairly laborious, depending on the country and data source. Some countries may have a centralized database of many species (across taxonomic groups and levels of rarity) from which population sizes and counts can be extracted directly and quickly. This may be especially the case for plants, long lived organisms and those of high economic, ecological or cultural value. Extracting data directly from computer files or tables would be very straightforward and it can be entered in the data collection form easily. For more countries we anticipate that data will need to be extracted manually by humans by reading reports, websites, planning documents, and/or expert consultation. Often it may be necessary to consult more than one resource. Options include
If doing manual data extraction, each data source should be read thoroughly. Many Red List assessments and management plans might be 1 to 20 pages long (sometimes longer). The text might clearly state the size of each population, sometimes in text and sometimes in a table, and sometimes with a map. However, data may be incomplete, such as listing the size of only the largest or smallest populations. As noted above, it is ok to submit species for which some information is missing. The time necessary to gather data from individual sources (and/or consult experts) may range from 15 minutes (for clear, short reports), to several hours.
Data may be recorded directly on the Kobo form, or on printed paper, or other means, and then transferred to the Kobo form.